May 22nd, 2019

City voucher rates to be set by zip code

Change will help keep vouchers competitive

The Boston Housing Authority will be the first public housing authority in the country to voluntarily set its payment standards for low-income families by zip code rather than a blanket price.

In a press briefing last week, the BHA announced that it will be adopting small-area fair market rents (SAFMRs) in order to encourage families who hold mobile housing vouchers to live in more varied areas of the city and state, rather than forcing them to concentrate in neighborhoods where rent is lower.

BHA Director Bill McGonagle said the existing voucher program was created to provide expanded choices for poor families and deconcentrate poverty.

“In reality, that is not what has happened,” he said. “In essence, what we’re trying to do is to get back to the original intent of the voucher program.”

Under the Section 8 program, voucher holders pay approximately 30 percent of their income toward a set monthly rent, while the government contributes the rest.

For the approximately 13,000 current voucher holders, the payment standard for a two-bedroom apartment is $1,914 per month. Through a lengthy study of incomes and rents throughout the city, the BHA has proposed new payment standards that range from $1,881 (areas of Roxbury and Dorchester) to $3,290 (downtown and the Seaport) for the same size apartment in the Metropolitan Boston area.

Current tenants living in neighborhoods where the pay standard has been lowered will not be affected by the changes; only new tenants moving into those areas will be affected.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development mandated SAFMRs in 24 cities around the country in 2017, and authorized others, like Boston, to do so on their own. The city has not yet done so, however, because the payment standards proposed by HUD would have been lower than the current ones in several neighborhoods, penalizing the families currently living there. The BHA petitioned HUD to raise the standards, eventually gaining approval for the rates being proposed now.

“Now, it’s up to the Boston Housing Authority to put the rents where they believe the market is,” said Sheila Dillon, the city’s chief of housing.

Dillon said that the program will allow voucher holders, who are predominantly people of color, to move to areas of the city which were previously inaccessible for low-income residents. Currently, voucher holders are concentrated in Roxbury and Dorchester, where one zip code is home to 1,384 voucher-holding families; in contrast, just one voucher-holding family currently resides in Beacon Hill.

In addition, she said, this would relieve rental pressure on those more affordable neighborhoods, helping to stop rents from rising.

Allowing voucher holders to access more expensive neighborhoods would also give them the opportunity to access the opportunities and resources provided in those neighborhoods.

“This will provide real choice for families,” McGonagle said. “We believe that the heads of household are the folks that are best able to make a decision about where they should live and raise their family. Poor folks ought to have the choice to live and raise their family just as folks with money do.”

The proposal will be subject to a 45-day public comment period ending on June 24. A public hearing will be held at the Copley Square Branch of the Boston Public Library at 6 p.m. Tuesday, June 11.

After that, the program will go into effect July 1.

In a statement, Mayor Martin Walsh supported the proposal, saying that it was in support of the city’s housing goals.

“Our housing efforts have always been grounded by our fundamental belief that every person, regardless of their income, is deserving of a home,” Walsh said. “We are doubling down on one of the most important aspects of our fair housing efforts — the right for people to choose a place to live that works best for themselves and their families.”

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